Archmastery Guide: How to Use School Pips | Wizard101

If you're like me, Archmastery and getting school pips to use with the new Novus spells (plus a handful of old spells that have been updated to include them) is pretty confusing. So I've been asking around and doing a lot of testing in the game to get the hang of things. Here's how to get school pips and use them with Archmastery!

The Basics

Archmastery is a new system in Wizard101 that allows you to gain school pips. School pips can be used as power pips for another school like Mastery Amulets, except you can change your Archmastery school even in the middle of a fight, giving you access to power pips from any school you want. School pips are also required for Loremaster spells now, as well as the new Novus spells.

How to Get School Pips

Open your deck and look for the school icon above the unequip button in the center at the bottom. You can click on this to change the school that you want to earn a pip for.

In combat, you'll earn toward school pips based on a few factors explained below. The meter on your name card will show you how close you are to earning your next school pip. When you earn a school pip, you'll get it instead of a power pip for that round - basically like converting a power pip to a school pip (but remember, it still counts as a power pip for your own school spells).

That in mind, if you don't gain any power pips and have all single pips or already have full pips for another school, the new pips you earn will be stored in the meter, which will have a number. Once you gain a new power pip, it'll be converted from this stored value.

If you manage to get all single pips or not acquire a power pip for some time, your power orb will make one for you. Once you have stored 3 pips, it will convert the 3 stored pips into a power pip, then fill the meter again to convert that power pip into a school pip. It's much less efficient than being able to gain power pips naturally and convert them, but it does mean you can never get locked out of using a dual school spell.

You can change the school of pip you're working toward during combat by clicking on the school icon by your name. This does not reset the meter - you'll continue to make progress toward a school pip and keep whatever progress you already had.

School Pip Cost & Counting

Reading the cost of a spell can be tricky. The way it's done has changed. Now, an actual image of the pip is shown next to the cost, and it means that the card costs that pip plus the listed amount.

We also see this change reflected on shadow spells, which show the actual shadow pips required to cast it along with the standard pip cost. So in the above example, Dark Shepherd costs 2 Shadow pips. Scales of Destiny costs 1 pip plus one Ice pip and one Life pip. Improbable Gaze costs 3 pips plus one Ice pip. The same rules for power pips with the spell's school still apply, so you'll need either a power pip and regular pip on a Myth wizard along with your Ice pip to cast Improbable Gaze, or three of any pip on a wizard with no Myth mastery. A Myth pip would count as two pips toward the spell.

School pips count as:

• A power pip for their designated school
• A power pip for your own school
• A power pip for any school you have a mastery amulet for
• One pip for everything else

Spells with school pips tend to be more powerful because they are counting a school pip as three pips worth of power (even though it only costs 2) when determining the damage and effects.

In the example above, I'm a Death wizard. I have two ice pips, one storm pip, and one power pip. 

• I can cast Reindeer Knight with two Ice pips (4 since they're power pips for Ice) plus one power pip (1 since I'm not Ice)
• I can cast Improbable Gaze with one Ice pip (2) and every remaining pip - Ice, Storm, and Power (3 since they're not power pips for Myth)
• I can't cast Deathly Depths because although I have the Ice pips for it, I need a Death pip even as a Death wizard
• I can cast King Artorius with all pips (8) because any school pip counts as a power pip for my school (Death)
• I can cast Gravestorm with one Storm pip (2), one power pip (2), and one Ice pip (counts as 2 for Death but is needed to meet the cost of 3)

Archmastery in PvE vs. PvP

Archmastery works differently in PvE and PvP. In PvE, if you have any Archmastery rating at all, your "Power Orb Efficiency" will be 100% which means you'll likely get a school pip guaranteed every turn. There are some exceptions, however. If any combat participant has a higher archmastery rating than you, your efficiency will drop slightly, even if it's one of your own allies! All of the same rules apply here also - you still need a power pip to turn into a school pip. Remember that you can change this in combat but be sure to change it in your deck to get the pip you want on the first round! 

To view your Archmastery rating, go to your character screen and navigate to the second tab (Advanced Character Statistics) and use the arrow at the bottom to go to the second page (shown above). To view your Power Orb Efficiency, go to your deck and mouse over the same icon you use to select your school pip type. You'll notice you have an efficiency level for both PvE and PvP.

Players who are level 50 or higher will have natural Archmastery, which means they'll gain a school pip every round in PvE. Players under level 50 can gain Archmastery using items or jewels that provide it - more on that below. 

PvP works differently. You'll notice that your PvP "Power Orb Efficiency" is much lower than your PvE one. It is affected by a few things: first, your Archmastery rating. You can boost this with gear and it increases naturally from level 50 to the max level. Second, you can add more cards to your deck. The more cards that you have in your deck total, the higher your Power Orb Efficiency will be. It is calculated by the percentage of your deck which is filled. So if you have a 64-card deck with 28 cards in it, 28/64 = 0.4375 or 43.75% efficiency.

In both PvE and PvP, your opponent's Archmastery rating also affects the rate at which you earn power pips. PvE enemies have little to no Archmastery rating, which means you gain pips very quickly. PvP enemies will have an Archmastery rating closer to yours, perhaps enhanced by gear or jewels, which will decrease the rate at which you earn school pips.

How to Get Archmastery Rating

Archmastery rating comes naturally from level 50 and above. You can get additional Archmastery rating from a few different places. Supposedly, it will be coming from pet talents. In the meantime, you can purchase a jewel from Rockhammer's Jewel Works in the Shopping District for 10,310 gold. It gives +1 Archmastery rating, but that's enough to give you a pip every turn in PvE if you're under level 50. This does mean that you'll need an item to socket the jewel to. 

You can also get Archmastery rating on some of the new gear, like decks from raid drops and the final Novus bosses (also available via crafting).

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Thanks for reading and see you in the Spiral!